Canada’s ‘Hijab Day’ offends Jewish Lobby

On March 8, Sima Goel, in an article at the Canadian Jewish News called the Hijab Day events across Canadian Campuses, “a folly”. She says since Jewish men don’t celebrate a “Skullcap Day” or Sikhs a “Turban Day”, therefore, it’s foolish for Muslim women to celebrate Hijab Day in Canada.

I’m sure Goel never heard of “Gay Parade” in Montreal and Toronto run by her Tribe.

Goel, a Montreal Chiropractor, who was born into an Iranian Jewish family, has long been anti-Iran campaigner. She claims that the only reason she left Iran because she was forced to wear Hijab after 1979 Islamic Revolution (a lie as there are millions of Iranian Muslim girls and women who still don’t wear Hijab). She claims she escaped to neighboring Pakistan and then immigrated to Canada. She is author of book, Fleeing the Hijab, A Jewish Woman’s Escape from Iran.

Ottawa-based Shabnam Assadollahi, an Iranian Baha’i women who runs an anti-Iran human rights NGO, wrote a letter to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson urging him not to allow the event being held at the City Hall. As a great shock to Shabnam and her Jewish supporters (CIJ News, February 17), the Mayor wrote back: “I’m not in a position to intervene in this difference of opinion you have with the event organizers. this volunteer initiative seems to be focused on removing perceived stigma around an article of clothing. It’s not my role to tell people what they should wear.”

On February 24, Islamic Club at Toronto’s Presbyterian Knox college hosted annual Hijab Day at the Campus – open to all female-identifying students who wanted to spend a day in the shoes of Muslim women who decide to wear the hijab. The event meant to educate students and faculty as a response to a mentality Muslim girls witnessed at Knox, which saw the hijab as a form of oppression.

World Hijab Day was started in 2013 by Nazma Khan, an American Muslim who faced both physical and emotional hardship for wearing the hijab. She created the day in hopes of educating non-Muslims about what it’s like to wear a hijab. Since then, it has taken place in more than 116 countries. It’s a world-wide event that encourages women of all faiths and backgrounds to learn from Muslim women as to their experience in wearing a Hijab (a headscarf, as part of female modesty garment).

World Hijab Day has some success in debunking some of lies about women rights in Islam. Last year, young American White mother of one, Megan Baase, converted to Islam after attending an event.

In Canada the event was held in February 2016 in Ottawa, St. Catherines, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, and several other cities.

World Hijab Day is a response to misinterpretation of the hijab. Westerners believe that Muslim women who wear hijab do so because they’re forced to do it. The women who choose to wear hijab at Campuses, parliaments, offices, are especially susceptible to discrimination not only in the West but also in some Muslim countries, such as Turkey, Albania, Tunisia, and Morocco. If women are encouraged to wear bikini in western nation – Muslim women should have the right to cover their bodies the way they want.

Dr.Larycia Hawkins, the Wheaton College Christian professor who was fired for wearing Hijab during last Christmas, said at the First United Methodist Church in Chicago on February 29, “I had no idea it would blow up in the way it did, but I would do it again and again and again.”